Responses to the Global Crisis

Which brings us to the matter of popular perception. There is no doubt we need to rethink our core values and interests if we are to actually behave differently. Over the last few decades individualistic consumerism has become an increasingly central part of people’s lives. Whatever it has done for the economy, we know this shift has caused, or worsened, some serious personal and social problems. For instance, we know that growing mental health problems - everything from general stress levels to suicide rates - are related to the individualisation and alienation that comes from living in a materialist society with declining levels of family or community interaction. These core problems are of course to be treated by even more consumption – more pills, more gadgets, maybe a trip overseas.

In many ways, the key to using communications technologies effectively and changing our lives generally lies in changed perceptions of what really matters. The attraction of yet another goodie – hair dye, shirt, car, holiday – to make us feel better, for a while, is more immediately obvious than that of some quiet community activity working to some general benefit.

As an example, people who collaborate in an activity often find that the collaboration itself is the best result. Take the instance of community gardens: originally a way of producing tasty, healthy food and avoiding mass-produced junk food, what participants often find is the genuine satisfaction of working with others. Since many people, from kids to geriatrics, suffer from social isolation, efforts to bring people together in new ways can significantly improve quality of life.

This focus on relationships, or social interconnectivity, is sometimes called ‘social capital’. From this perspective, a society so interconnected would still be capitalist but in a different way.

Technology can reinforce isolation and selfishness for individuals and control by authorities, as cyberspace is tending to do now, or it can be used to promote community and greater participation in many areas, including politics. The latter will only happen if people value these things and live accordingly, which is why perceptions must change.

The basic material conditions are not negotiable and we must face this reality; real organisational changes can be achieved but there are technical limits; popular perceptions can change very quickly but this is not easy to do.

Clearly the best option would be for people and governments to operate in an increasingly open, integrated way to make new rules to guide a more efficient and sustainable society. Business, where much of the actual innovative organisational activity occurs, can then take the lead and operate differently to give us better choices in what we buy and how we work.

To this end we need an ever better-informed and well-intentioned debate. We cannot leave the decisions to the usual vested interests and their flunkies (witness the current political theatre in the U.S. where the two candidates refuse to acknowledge the dire situation of America in a world in trouble). We need to turn away from the growing distractions of media and the life of rampant over-consumption and face up to our real choices in a world already changed by our own past actions as a civilisation and species.